by Devon Ford
Dan smiled the appropriate response, but didn’t let the thought dissipate with the moment. Jumping down from his perch, he called aloud for everyone to head home.
He didn’t realise that the look he had seen on Olivier’s face was one of shame; a look of a man ashamed of himself, ashamed of his jealousy, ashamed because his lies were uncovered. It was a look of a man who would sell his own mother for status, and it was the look of a man whose loyalty could be bought for a very low price.
~
The two lethal patches of undergrowth listened as the sound of four engines faded away into the distance. They stayed put, not moving an inch, until they were certain that nobody had remained behind to ambush them in the unlikely event that the little man they had captured decided to betray them. To betray his country and his army.
Slithering low to the ground they returned to the small section of fence they had cut and so painstakingly fixed back into place so as not to show any sign of their entry into the camp. Walking fast but quietly over the uneven ground they moved in silence until they regained the position of their vehicle.
Combined with the detailed activity report and carefully drawn map from his sniper, le chasseur had now obtained real-time intelligence on the strength and capabilities of his adversary. He knew the basic approach to the defence of the walled town by the sea, and, vitally, he now knew how to crack it open like an egg.
The chess pieces were forming up, and the king would fall to him.
GAME CHANGER
Waking with a gasp, sheeted with sweat and fighting to control his breathing, Steve took a few seconds to realise where he was.
He was on a folding cot, restrained by a sleeping bag, in a room with other people who all seemed blissfully unaware of the terror he had been in.
If it wasn’t the reliving of the horrific events which caused him to transform from pilot in the air to a bleeding sack of meat and bone on the ground, then it was something else. More terrifying than the twisted and contorted memories and false memories of the helicopter crash, was his other recurring nightmare. The same one he had just experienced, which led him to jolt awake in such sudden fear of his own death that his body was sticky and cold as his heart pounded in his chest. In this repeating dream, he again stood on the steps of the commandeered town hall in their unhappy camp, and as he was delivering his victory speech to the grateful masses, his nemesis appeared and gunned him down. In his own nightmare, the madman he had cheated out of air superiority came to exact his terrible revenge, and the gun raised towards him in slow motion. He saw the barrel rise, was powerless to do anything about it, and stood transfixed by the black circle of the business end of the gun and waited for the flash.
That flash signalled his demise, it foretold his death, and each and every time it felt completely, utterly, and inescapably real.
Trying and failing to gain command of his breathing, his shoulders heaved and he clutched both hands to his breast bone and forced his lungs to slow their desperate race to burst.
Two whole minutes passed before he felt in any way in control of his body again, and if he hadn’t known better he would have thought he was having a heart attack. He knew he wasn’t, because he had experienced the same sensation over and over, at least three times each week for months now.
Slowly extricating himself from the damp sleeping bag he swung his feet out of the bed to the cold floor. In the shaft of light in front of his face beaming in from the artificial lights outside, he saw his breath mist before him. The cold December air hit his damp body then, and brought on racking shivers which made his teeth chatter involuntarily. Knowing he would not regain any sleep that night, or probably much the night after, he struggled to his feet still shivering. At least if he was done with slumber for the night then he might as well make himself more comfortable and wash away the cold layer of sweat.
Remembering to retrieve the walking stick which he hadn’t needed for months, he shrugged a blanket over his shoulders and retrieved the towel and armful of clothes he had laid out for the following day; a practice he had been accustomed to for as long as he could remember, from long days at sea waiting to run to his aircraft at a moment’s notice, to the days spent on intensive training where an extra minute of sleep could make all the difference. He may be damaged, crippled, and have no access to a helicopter for the remainder of his life, but he was still, at heart, a warrior.
His war had changed exponentially, and was now more akin to the French resistance of the Second World War than it was to the modern aerial warfare he had trained for and engaged in for close to three decades.
So now, remembering to appear to anyone who saw him as a broken cripple, he limped his way quietly out of the dormitory and towards the shower block.
Glancing down and squinting at the face of the watch he now wore – his own expensive diver’s watch that he had worn for years had long been lost – he saw that he still had probably four hours before sunrise. With a resigned sigh, he limped onwards to the shower block.
Ever the optimist, he smiled to himself thinking that if anything good were to come of this then he would at least enjoy a piping hot shower; the reservoir tanks for the general population quickly ran cold at peak times, and a cold shower was something they all endured. He limped on under the far from watchful gaze of two guards, one of whom he strongly suspected was checking the security from behind his eyelids.
Only now he saw steam emanating from the door of the block as he approached, instantly bleeding away to nothing in the cold, dark air. Someone was enjoying the hot water he had been imagining to be all for him.
Entering the steaming and poorly lit room he allowed his eyes to adjust. The furthest shower cubicle – separated only by the lazy rigging of plastic curtains – had soapy water flowing out and into the central drain. As his eyes grew more accustomed to the steamy environment, he saw with horror that the water flowing towards his feet was laced with swathes of diluting red.
Torn between thinking he may still be asleep and fearing that he may have discovered another suicide, he dropped the stick along with his bundle of folded, dry clothes and covered the distance to the cubicle in two long strides. Tearing aside the curtain quickly, he gaped through the steam to be instantly confronted with a scream from the occupant.
Snatching at the curtain to draw it again and restore the modesty of the now terrified occupant, he slipped in the soapy water and fell heavily on his backside where he was powerless to do anything but stare up at the naked and blood-drenched form of Lizzie attempting to cover herself. She stopped mid scream, stood more upright and inadvertently flashed him an eyeful of breast, cocked her head slightly and regarded him with a questioning look.
“Steve?” she said, perplexed and relaxing as suddenly as her fear had erupted vocally.
“I’m sorry, I saw blood and I... I’m so sorry!” he blurted out like a schoolboy turning his eyes away, ashamed and embarrassed by his actions and her nakedness.
Abandoning all pretence of modesty, she stepped forwards and helped him to his feet; his embarrassed blushing thankfully hidden by the poor lighting and the steam in the air.
“A guard will have heard that, get in the shower quickly,” she hissed at him, almost projecting him across the small space and into the opposite cubicle.
True enough, a guard entered ten seconds later having heard the scream. His unconcerned challenge was easily deflected, and Lizzie’s easy reassurance that she had slipped but wasn’t hurt satisfied the tired and bored sentry into returning to his comfortable chair where he had been dozing until she so rudely woke him.
The two showering conspirators held their collective breath until both felt that the lie had been believed. Steve stood, unsure of what to make of everything that had just happened, until the curtain twitched back in front of him and Lizzie darted in to stand beside him. Now wearing a towel wrapped around her torso, he was bizarrely more aroused at the sight of her than he had been before. Shaking his head to clear the un
helpful and inappropriate thoughts, he tuned in just in time to hear her words.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his ear, barely audible over the sound of the shower she had left running. “You scared me and it’s not like things don’t happen here.”
Steve’s slow-moving brain was recovering speed now, and connected the dots that this is where a guard was supposed to have assaulted a woman before Richards had him publicly executed.
“I thought,” he said, almost choking on his words before trying again, still unable to look directly at her for fear she would see through him. “I thought someone had hurt themselves,” he finished lamely.
Suicide was a matter he suspected that many of them had considered, but hope generally held out for most people.
“It’s not my blood,” she said, “someone came in injured as I was leaving the hospital, and I got covered in his blood trying to save him.”
Her choice of words took a few seconds to connect in Steve’s brain before he asked, “Trying?”
She looked straight into his eyes, as unconcerned with her state of undress as she was the blood still in her hair.
“I tried. He didn’t survive,” she said blankly. Steve processed this more quickly before asking, “Us or them?” meaning was it a cog or was it one of the machine operators.
“One of them,” she said, with no hint of a smile.
Steve asked what had happened, but Lizzie hushed him with placatory hand gestures. “It’s not important,” she interrupted. “What is important is that I report this to the resistance without getting caught.”
Her revelation rocked him. He knew people knew about the resistance, obviously, but having never had the chance to speak to her in private he now realised that all his safety measures and safeguards he so painstakingly observed had worked. He had isolated the members of the movement to such an extent that the woman he knew so well had no idea that he was behind it all.
Swallowing down the first words which came to his tongue, he knew that he had to keep it that way. Another reason to do so was that a revelation had just dawned on him that, not only did he know this woman so well, but that he also harboured a deeper emotional connection to her that he hadn’t fully understood until just now.
Focusing himself, he played along.
“What do you know about the resistance?” he asked.
She seemed taken aback by the question, as though she felt confident she had been imparting knowledge to the uninitiated.
“What do you know about it?” she shot back.
Steve fell back on his extensive training which had been innocuously called RTI, or resistance to interrogation, so many years ago.
As a military helicopter pilot, he had faced great risk of being shot down and captured by the enemy, and was trained as best he could be to survive the ordeal of being interrogated by soldiers who did not adhere to the same rules he had to. He had been taught to hold out for as long as possible, only providing the enemy with his name, rank and number, but when the risk became too great or the pain of torture became unbearable, he would fall back on half-truths and out-of-date intelligence. This was called the controlled release of information, and it was what he relied on now.
“I sometimes pass messages between people. I don’t know who and I don’t know what it all means. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle I only have a few bits for,” he lied smoothly, purely to protect them both.
Lizzie seemed impressed, as though she suddenly discovered he was a secret celebrity.
“I hear things, both from the guards and the patients, when I’m in medical. I can piece the bits together too, but what happened tonight was weird.”
Steve asked how it was weird, and listened intently to her explanation.
“I was just packing up to close the clinic for the night when two guards carried in a younger one. There was so much blood I couldn’t even find out where the wound was, but he’d been stabbed in the stomach. I was the only one left and I needed the doctor for emergency surgery so I sent the guards to fetch help. I tried to keep him still and stem the bleeding but I had no chance of stopping it without surgery.” She paused, looking down as though she was reliving the story and not simply recounting it. Steve reached up and placed a hand on her shoulder, happy to wait for her to be ready to tell the remainder of the tale.
“He kept trying to push my hands away from the wound, kept saying ‘Will’…” She swallowed, now totally immersed in the memory. Steve couldn’t be sure if the water running down her cheeks was from her wet hair or tears from her eyes.
“He told me that another one of them did it, and they wouldn’t stop until they had finished the job.”
Pausing again, Steve gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze of encouragement. She raised her face, looked directly into his eyes and delivered the biggest, most important single piece of intelligence his resistance movement had ever gleaned.
“He died in my arms, but before he went he told me they’re planning to take over the camp,” she said with savage finality.
Steve’s face showed the appropriate level of shock, but inside his brain went off like a firework display. Will? The twins? Seizing control from Richards? Murdering their own?
This threw so many things out of orbit that he had been completely unaware of and shattered his plan for a mostly peaceful takeover. A rogue element of guards led by the savage brothers was not a fly this particular ointment could endure, and he had to re-evaluate quickly.
“I can get this to the resistance,” he told her, seeing the relief and emotion wash over her face as she now unburdened herself of the terrible experience she had just been put through. She seemed to deflate, her eyes showing sadness as her chin quivered. She let go of her strong exterior and cried, burying her face deep in his neck and sobbing. He just stood there, holding the half-naked and soaking wet nurse who had saved his leg and his life. The woman he was attracted to, yet no amount of lust could make him consider taking advantage of her vulnerability. She was part of his resistance, whether she knew it was his or not, and she was willing to risk her life to get the information to those who could act on it.
Finally, her crying abated and she wordlessly returned to her shower to rinse the last of the red from her pale hair. She dried herself, dressed, and left the block, all without saying another word. Steve retrieved his wet clothes, decided they would probably dry after he had worn them for a while, and stripped down to wash away the sticky residue of his nightmare.
Shivering under the tepid drizzle, Lizzie’s extended shower having obliterated the chance of the hot water he had been anticipating, he steeled himself for a fight far bigger than he had thought was on the horizon, and that horizon was looming fast.
~
Max flinched in his chair in the grand hallway as whatever had been thrown inside Richards’s office hit the wall with a resounding thud. He sat still and listened, staring resolutely ahead and trying his hardest to look like he knew nothing; he did, mostly, but he was certain that his dishonesty was tattooed on his forehead.
Despite the thick walls and heavy wooden door, he could clearly make out every word being screamed inside. The tirade had gone on for more than ten minutes already, having begun shortly after he had summoned the highest echelons of the leadership before their breakfast. Currently inside the room being roasted by the Major were the two brothers, both wearing stone-cold expressions of blankness, and three deputy commanders responsible for the daily running of the camp.
Having received no orders to enter the grand office and takes notes, Max had returned to his desk and sat in fearful silence until his over-inflated receptionist duties were required once more.
“I will ask you again, gentlemen,” Richards shouted with acidic emphasis. “How exactly did this happen?”
Max heard one of the men clear his throat and begin to spout meaningless waffle about being understaffed, and that they couldn’t possibly double every guard duty before the voice trailed away suddenly as another missile was
launched against the wall, this one shattering to play a decorative tinkling sound as the broken pieces of what Max guessed was a crystal decanter exploded.
Nobody filled the silence, and Richards carried on. “You two are oddly quiet,” he snarled threateningly, and Max imagined the two unnaturally and intrinsically linked brothers shooting a brief glance at each other, seemingly communicating telepathically.
“Isolated incident, sir,” one of them replied woodenly.
“From what our sources say, the man was overly friendly with some of the workers—” this from one of the others who was eager to interject with something helpful before Richards destroyed his attempts to ingratiate himself.
“I was asking an organ-grinder, not a monkey. Speak when addressed directly, sir,” the Major spat with his own specific brand of well-mannered abuse, silencing the man instantly. Max allowed himself a smirk as he pictured the jowly face of the man nominally in charge of organising the working parties outside of the camp turning crimson with impotent rage and shame.
“Isolated incident? Elucidate,” Richards commanded.
Max could only hear a few words of the explanation, which he guessed came from the older brother who had a quieter, yet infinitely more frightening, voice. From what he could glean without moving or pressing his ear to the wall for fear of being discovered, he thought that the brothers were painting a picture of a guard who had become inappropriately close to a number of people he was guarding. Their best joint assessment was that the man had become embroiled in something and had ultimately fetched himself a knife to the guts for his involvement.
That reasonable, yet simplistic, report seemed to satisfy Richards. Max knew he liked a simple solution presented to him, as he had to merely give the idea his blessing as opposed to actively think about anything other than his current mad-hat idea. His last one was to instruct Max to find someone among the population who could paint his likeness and immortalise him in oil and canvas.
